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Articles RF & Microwave Electronics
Architecture of the Air Force Satellite Control Network
The Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) is a worldwide network of ground stations that supports a variety of users from NASA to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The...
Articles Aerospace
Using Standardized Test Methods to Develop Unmanned Ground Vehicles
Traditional test methodologies employ testing as part of the validation phase of a project. While testing plays an important role for validation and quality control, it can...
Articles Aerospace
Minimizing Thermal Resistance with Direct Attach Heat Spreaders
As commercial and military electronics applications continue to “push the envelope” with higher powers and smaller packaging requirements, it is becoming more critical to...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Designing High-Speed, Rugged Data Recorders
High-speed recorders represent a major share of electronic instrumentation found in commercial, industrial, scientific research, government, and defense applications. Each system captures specific...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Improving Software Reliability in Satellite and Spacecraft Applications
In the space industry, much of the effort to refine system engineering processes has been done by hand using tools as divergent as Microsoft PowerPoint to IBM Rational...
Articles Test & Measurement
Using Software Defined Instruments to Address the Mixed-Signal Test Challenges of Today’s Software Defined Radios
Software Defined Radio (SDR) represents an important move forward for mobile and personal communications, promising a major...
Articles RF & Microwave Electronics
An Advanced Circuit Protection Approach for RF Interfaces
One aspect that sets circuit protection for radio frequency (RF) apart from other types of applications is the range of frequencies in which RF circuits operate. With abbreviated clock...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Extensible Processing Platforms: Giving Designers the Best of Both Worlds
Creating a new field programmable gate array is no small feat. FPGA vendors spend tens-of-thousands of man-hours simply researching markets to determine the feature set a...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Event-Driven Processor Programming
Almost since computers were invented, interrupts have been a common programming method to deal with real-time tasks. An interrupt causes a processor to stop the running task, and to execute an interrupt...
Articles Aerospace
Inside the Navy’s Quiet Water Tunnel Facility
When water flows over an acoustic sensor, non-acoustic pressure fluctuations caused by turbulence can decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and make it difficult to sense incoming acoustic waves. The...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Choosing a Capacitor for Use as a Switch-Mode Power Supply Filter
Input filter caps need to be able to supply a quick burst of energy and to suppress noise generated in the switch circuit. Important considerations for the input filter cap are...
Articles Aerospace
Modern Military Energy Storage Technology
The risk of human casualties associated with fuel convoys, combined with the long-term cost issues of unreliable technologies, has the military exploring greener, more sustainable options with the goal...
Articles RF & Microwave Electronics
Using Modeling and Simulation to Assess Antenna Performance During Vehicle Platform Integration
Successful integration of an antenna onto a vehicle platform poses many challenges. Vehicle features impact antenna performance by blocking,...
Articles Aerospace
Prototyping with Multi-Layer Boards
As electronic components continue to move increasingly into surface- mount packages exclusively, prototype manufacturing firms are seeing a shift in the fabrication and assembly work needed to implement...
Articles Electronics & Computers
From Reference Board to Rugged Military SBC
Intel processor reference designs are developed by Intel to assist engineers in the design of Intel processor-based products. The less a design deviates from the reference design, the easier the...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Graphics Performance vs. Power Consumption in Embedded Systems Design
The rapid evolution of technology has given embedded developers more options than ever before in designing embedded graphics systems. The consumer electronics market, most...
Articles Aerospace
Five Approaches to Cooling Military Electronics
Seventy-one degrees C is the temperature of a steak done medium-well. It is also the temperature of an oven used to test thermal characteristics of military electronics. Electronic components in...
Articles Aerospace
Using Fiber Metal Abradable Seals in Aerospace Turbine Applications
Limiting leakage in aerospace turbo-machinery has been a focus of engineers ever since the advent of the turbine. An increasing number of companies are finding that fiber metal...
Articles Aerospace
Surviving The Embedded Design Thermo-Mechanical Envelope
The Embedded usage model is characterized as one that is operated at the extremes of available performance. Knowing that the targets of the thermal design power usage mode are only...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Adapting ATCA Technology to Mil/Aero Applications
The military’s transition to Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) has created an enormous demand for improved networking and performance capabilities for ground mobile command and control...
Articles Electronics & Computers
The Evolution of CompactPCI From Parallel to Serial I/O
The true worth of an industry standard is measured in its ability to stand the test of time. From the onset, the system configuration, hardware components, and integration strategy all...
Articles Aerospace
Making Unmanned Ground Vehicles Operate More Autonomously
The US Army has announced plans to increase the autonomy of its Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). “We are moving along that spectrum from tele-operating to semi-autonomy where you can...
Articles Aerospace
Using Java in Avionics and UAV Applications
Though developers of avionics software are among the most conservative in the software engineering community, and rightly so, Java is beginning to penetrate even this very specialized industry. The...
Articles Imaging
Surveillance Technology Offers 3D Security Monitoring
A new, versatile imaging technology quickly gives users accurate three-dimensional depictions of objects being tracked. The image system, developed by Visidyne, Inc. (Burlington, MA),...
Articles Aerospace
Automating Radiation Effects Mitigation with FPGA Synthesis
FPGA designers of aerospace and defense applications have long wrestled with radiation effects. More recently, due to shrinking technology nodes, concerns have arisen about...
Articles Photonics/Optics
Designing COTS Optics Into Defense Projects
When settling in to design a new optical device for a defense application, it is often desirable to use Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) optical components wherever possible. COTS optics offer many...
Articles Sensors/Data Acquisition
Thermal Management Techniques for Military Embedded Computers
As military programs continue to place an ever growing reliance on embedded computer systems, developments in rugged computer design must continue to advance to keep pace with this...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Applying OpenVPX to Single Board Computers
For more than two decades, single board computers (SBCs) built on open standards have been largely based on specifications from two preeminent industry organizations, VITA and PICMG. For the 6U...
Articles Electronics & Computers
Using Static Analysis and Code Verification to Improve Embedded Software
Modern software development and test processes encompass a wide range of best practices and development methodologies. Personal preferences and lessons learned — both...
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